Being Your Best Self, Part 4: Moral Action | Concepts Unwrapped

00:07:04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBSac1BjVOM

Resumen

TLDRIn this discussion led by Professor Robert Prentice, the difficulty of translating moral intent into moral action is explored. Key factors include moral ownership, moral efficacy, and moral courage. Moral ownership means feeling responsible for the ethics of one's own and others' actions, and overcoming ethical blindness. Moral efficacy is about empowering oneself and others to act ethically against adversities, using the "power of one" to instigate change. Most significantly, moral courage involves a commitment to principles and enduring risks, such as job loss, to maintain integrity. Strategies like "go to hell" funds are recommended for financial support in doing so. Professor Gentile advises normalizing the expectation of ethical dilemmas and preparing for sacrifices to build an ethical career. Stories from various professionals emphasize the importance of respect over being liked, and the strength of character necessary to uphold ethical standards.

Para llevar

  • 🧠 Understand the importance of moral ownership to avoid ethical blindness.
  • 💪 Cultivate moral efficacy by believing in the power to effect change.
  • 🗣 Use the 'power of one' to make an ethical impact.
  • 🌟 Build moral courage to endure risks while upholding principles.
  • 💼 Establish a 'go to hell' fund for financial security during ethical stands.
  • 👥 Value respect over being liked for lasting ethical development.
  • 🔍 Normalize the expectation of ethical dilemmas in professional life.
  • 💡 Strength of character is key to maintaining ethical standards.
  • 👂 Keep channels open for critique to aid ethical decision-making.
  • 🏆 Strive to be your best ethical self by accepting sacrifices needed.

Cronología

  • 00:00:00 - 00:07:04

    Professor Prentice outlines the difficulty of translating ethical awareness and intent into action, highlighting the need for moral ownership, efficacy, and courage. Behavioral ethics can enhance these traits, helping to combat ethical blindness and make ethical choices. Prentice and Dillon illustrate the impact of individual actions and the potential to resist conformity through empowerment and understanding the 'power of one.' Moral efficacy includes believing in one's ability to act ethically and persuade others, emphasized by Mary Gentile's study of MBA applicants responding to ethical disquiet in their careers, where successful persuasion often overcame unethical demands. Claire adds that shifting focus from being liked to being respected was crucial for her moral development, underscoring the value of respect over transient likeability.

Mapa mental

Vídeo de preguntas y respuestas

  • What are the three elements needed to turn moral intent into moral action according to Professor Hannah?

    Moral ownership, moral efficacy, and moral courage are necessary.

  • What is moral ownership?

    Moral ownership involves feeling responsible for the ethical nature of one's actions and those around them.

  • What is the "power of one"?

    The 'power of one' refers to the impact a single, ordinary person can have in influencing ethical change and action.

  • How can one develop moral efficacy?

    By believing in one's ability to act ethically and persuade others to do the same.

  • What did Mary Gentile's study on Columbia University MBA applicants reveal about facing ethical challenges?

    Many faced ethical challenges, a majority complied with wrong requests, 10% walked away, and some succeeded in persuading change.

  • How did Claire prioritize her ethical and moral development?

    She focused on being respected rather than liked, which she found crucial for her ethical growth.

  • What is moral courage according to Rushworth Kidder?

    A commitment to moral principles and willing endurance of danger involved.

  • What is a "go to hell" fund?

    A financial reserve that allows individuals to maintain moral courage by providing financial security while seeking new employment.

  • What advice did Professor Gentile offer for handling ethical dilemmas?

    Visualize ethical dilemmas as part of professional life and prepare to make career sacrifices to uphold integrity.

  • How can you strengthen moral courage?

    Practice anticipating ethical dilemmas, maintain strength of character, and keep open channels for accountability.

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  • 00:00:11
    [Professor Robert Prentice] Even if you are aware of an ethical issue, correctly select
  • 00:00:14
    a defensible ethical choice, and have the desire to do the right thing, you may still
  • 00:00:20
    be unable to translate all that into moral action.
  • 00:00:28
    Professor Hannah and his colleagues argue that it takes three things to turn moral intent
  • 00:00:33
    into moral action, and those are: moral ownership, moral efficacy, and moral courage.
  • 00:00:40
    Fortunately, the teachings of behavioral ethics can bolster all three.
  • 00:00:46
    We take moral ownership when we feel a sense of psychological responsibility over the ethical
  • 00:00:51
    nature of our own actions and of those around us.
  • 00:00:58
    To create moral ownership, we must battle the forces that cause ethical blindness
  • 00:01:02
    and moral myopia.
  • 00:01:05
    All the behavioral-based advice given in other videos as to how we can avoid ethical fading,
  • 00:01:11
    make ethical choices, and ratchet up our moral intent should assist us
  • 00:01:16
    in increasing our moral ownership.
  • 00:01:20
    [Dillon] The way it was explained to me was, "OK, you run a red light.
  • 00:01:23
    If everybody decided to run red lights and disregard the stoplights,
  • 00:01:27
    ultimately somebody's going to get in a car accident and ultimately somebody's going to die."
  • 00:01:31
    Your actions have outcomes.
  • 00:01:33
    You need to make sure that those outcomes are as positive as possible.
  • 00:01:38
    Moral efficacy is a belief in our ability to act ethically and to induce others
  • 00:01:42
    to do so in the face of moral adversity.
  • 00:01:46
    Often people have an abstract desire to do the right thing, but just don't feel empowered
  • 00:01:50
    to resist all the forces of authority, conformity and the like that can make it difficult to do so.
  • 00:01:57
    But we must remember what's been called the "power of one."
  • 00:02:02
    Although it is natural for us to feel isolated and lonely and therefore believe that we can't
  • 00:02:06
    possibly have an impact, evidence shows that often a single, ordinary person CAN make a difference.
  • 00:02:15
    Our bosses and coworkers may just be looking at things the wrong way and, if given a couple
  • 00:02:20
    of good reasons to change their minds, would do so.
  • 00:02:24
    And that ability to persuade can create a feeling of moral efficacy.
  • 00:02:29
    Sometimes others may not have the courage to lead, but would have the courage to follow.
  • 00:02:36
    Mary Gentile read more than a thousand essays by Columbia University MBA applicants who
  • 00:02:41
    had been asked to write about whether they had in their professional lives been asked
  • 00:02:45
    to do something that made them ethically uncomfortable
  • 00:02:49
    and how they had dealt with the situation.
  • 00:02:51
    Almost all of the applicants had faced a difficult ethical situation.
  • 00:02:56
    A little more than half just did what they had been asked to do,
  • 00:02:59
    even though it seemed wrong to them.
  • 00:03:01
    They didn't feel they had a choice.
  • 00:03:04
    About 10% had the courage to just walk out the door rather than get stuck
  • 00:03:09
    in an unethical culture.
  • 00:03:12
    Of the rest, a small group tried to do the right thing and failed, but most tried to
  • 00:03:19
    do the right thing and succeeded!
  • 00:03:22
    They found that if they just made a forceful case for their ethical position, they often
  • 00:03:26
    won over their bosses and co-workers.
  • 00:03:31
    [Claire] I think what's really helped me, you know, develop ethically and morally is....
  • 00:03:39
    this might sound callous, but I think I just stopped caring so much about being liked.
  • 00:03:45
    I realized what I really wanted was to be respected.
  • 00:03:48
    It's easy to make people like you but it's really hard to be respected, and so if you
  • 00:03:52
    can orient your choices around being respected, not liked; liked is like
  • 00:03:58
    "do they like me today, will they like me tomorrow?"
  • 00:04:00
    Being respected is something I think you carry with you for a lifetime, so orienting myself
  • 00:04:04
    around wanting to be respected was a really pivotal moment, I think, in my development as
  • 00:04:09
    an ethical, moral person.
  • 00:04:12
    Finally, moral courage is necessary to translate moral decisions into moral action.
  • 00:04:19
    The late ethicist Rushworth Kidder defined moral courage as "a commitment to moral principles,
  • 00:04:25
    an awareness of the danger involved in supporting those principles,
  • 00:04:28
    and a willing endurance of that danger."
  • 00:04:34
    We may want to do the right thing, but be too timid to stand up to our superiors or peers.
  • 00:04:40
    Or perhaps, we lack the courage to risk the loss of our job.
  • 00:04:44
    How can we muster moral courage?
  • 00:04:49
    Professor Gentile recommends that, first, we should all be thrifty and set aside
  • 00:04:55
    "go to hell" funds.
  • 00:04:57
    It will obviously be easier for us to screw up the courage to do the right thing when
  • 00:05:01
    we have set aside money to pay living expenses while we look for another job
  • 00:05:06
    than if we owe money all over town.
  • 00:05:09
    [James] When I was in Chile and I was teaching, also in a university.
  • 00:05:14
    And that university was a private university that had a really big focus on making money.
  • 00:05:22
    My section of the course had issues...
  • 00:05:26
    and my students failed at the end.
  • 00:05:29
    The administration of the university contacted me, and told me that what they did with those
  • 00:05:35
    cases, it was making a final exam to make the students pass because if they were not
  • 00:05:42
    happy, they were not going to pay.
  • 00:05:44
    And then the administration told me that if I didn't do it they were going to do it anyways,
  • 00:05:49
    and I was going to lose my job.
  • 00:05:52
    Gentile recommends that we should visualize and accept the fact that part of our professional
  • 00:05:56
    journey will likely involve facing ethical dilemmas that will require us to make sacrifices
  • 00:06:02
    in order to have the type of career, and consequently the type of life, of which we can be proud.
  • 00:06:09
    By anticipating or normalizing the idea that we may have to take career-threatening risks
  • 00:06:15
    in order to preserve our integrity, we expand our vision of what we are capable of.
  • 00:06:21
    We can, in fact, do what is necessary to be our best selves.
  • 00:06:27
    [Melissa] Evaluating situations, and making decisions and making the habit of
  • 00:06:32
    "If I make this decision, I'm going to see it through."
  • 00:06:34
    Making sure that you’re keeping channels open for criticism
  • 00:06:37
    and making sure that other people are holding you accountable.
  • 00:06:39
    [Kelly] You have to have that strength of character, that internal courage, to
  • 00:06:42
    know you're in the right and to stick up for what you believe in.
  • 00:06:45
    [Carlos] It's something that's learned, it's something that's trained, it's something
  • 00:06:47
    you always have to mindful of, and something that you always have to practice.
Etiquetas
  • Ethics
  • Moral Ownership
  • Moral Efficacy
  • Moral Courage
  • Behavioral Ethics
  • Integrity
  • Ethical Dilemmas
  • Power of One
  • Professional Ethics
  • Character Development